The River of Ocean — Primitive : 91 



travel must be allowed before sea voyages were attempted and that 

 the origins of such coastal voyages are lost in the mists of time. 



In all these voyages the Mediterranean Sea itself played a part. In 

 the first place this sea is made up of two very distinct parts, for the 

 southern part of Italy and the island of Sicily separate the western 

 from the eastern Mediterranean. In the second place though the ocean 

 tides are of little effect in the Mediterranean, and surface and deeper 

 currents are felt acutely only in the straits of Gibraltar and Messina, 

 the wind systems are organized and persistent. 



Thus the earliest Egyptian and Phoenician and Minoan voyages 

 were confined to the eastern Mediterranean. It represented a distinct 

 breakthrough for each people when first the Minoans and then the 

 Greeks came into the western Mediterranean. Homer's account of 

 Scylla and Charybdis are fanciful exaggerations but they reflect the 

 fact that early navigators had real troubles with adverse winds and 

 unpredictable currents at the Strait of Messina and dreaded this pas- 

 sage. 



All these early navigators learned to know and use the favorable 

 wind systems of the eastern sea, waiting for favorable seasons for 

 their voyages. They made little reference to absolute or compass direc- 

 tions (they did not in fact have compasses) but classified their ports 

 and their courses according to the name of the wind that was used 

 for the voyage. This should not be surprising to New England read- 

 ers. Nowadays most people, thinking of a map, talk about going "up 

 north" or "down south" or even "up to Maine" but real New Eng- 

 landers still talk about "down east" or go "down to Boston" or "down 

 to Maine." This usage grew up at a time when most New England 

 travel was carried out in sailing ships. Prevailing winds in these lati- 

 tudes are west and southwest so if you leave Philadelphia or New 

 York or Connecticut for Boston or Maine you go "down the wind"; 

 on the return journey you would "beat up to New York." 



From Greece the downwind passage led southward toward the 

 African coast. Then there was a choice of an easy run under still 

 favorable winds eastward to Egypt or a somewhat less favorable run 

 westward under Sicily to Tripoli or Tunisia. Between southwest Sic- 

 ily and Africa there is a broad passage. Here at most seasons of the 

 year there was some likelihood of an unfavorable wind but also 

 enough variable winds so that with a little patient waiting the broad 



